A new command

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“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” 
(John 13:34, NIV)

The Thursday before Easter is called ‘Maundy Thursday’ from the Latin word mandatum, which means ‘commandment’. On that Thursday evening Jesus met for a passover supper with his closest disciples. Knowing that his crucifixion was drawing near, Jesus spent time teaching them what it meant to follow him. He sums it up in this statement: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

Is this really a new command from Jesus? The Old Testament Law tells us “Love your neighbour as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). Surely what Jesus is saying to his disciples is nothing more than the law had encouraged already?

Yes… and no. What Jesus says next makes the command new, or at the least operating on a new a deeper level: “As I have loved you, you must love one another.” We have a new measure of what it means to love others. That measure is the love that Jesus has demonstrated for us by giving himself as a sacrifice on the cross. ‘Love’ can feel a bit vague; ‘love like this’ makes it concrete’; ‘love like Jesus’ makes it even more challenging.

But the only way in which we can love like Jesus did, is to be loved _by_ Jesus. Today is a time to remember the depths of Jesus’ love for us, to rejoice in it and allow it to transform us into more loving people.

Lord Jesus, thank you that your love was so deep that you would go to the cross for me. Please allow me to be loved by you so that your love might fill me and flow out towards others today. Amen.

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